


will you surrender?

by argentae



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Dancing, M/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension, lowkey only lovers left alive-inspired, who knows what will happen during friday's clip? probably not this but oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 01:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18273194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argentae/pseuds/argentae
Summary: He refreshes David’s instagram feed knowing full well that nothing new will come up. Taps the picture of the bird, the broken one, the one that makes something pull at his chest when he looks at it for too long and imagines David’s hand carefully passing over the paper. Hopes for any indication that he might be on his way, that he might come to make this night just the slightest bit more bearable for Matteo.





	will you surrender?

**Author's Note:**

> listen. i watched only lovers left alive and if this dancing scene isn't in some ways referenced in canon then what even is the point, right? anyway, i couldn't really stop thinking about what that might look like so here's this... thing. i haven't written in months but now this exists. so that's something? i hope i got a bit of a grip on their characterisation, still testing stuff out on that front. 
> 
> just a heads-up: this is unbeta'ed, i'm posting this at 02:08 and i haven't read over it again but i just want to get it out into the world so i can't back out anymore. i'll probably go back in sometime tomorrow/over the weekend to fix stuff so i'm sorry if you're reading this before i get a chance to do that. i hope you enjoy either way. 
> 
> hey elena if you ever read this, this one's for you. you're a trooper for sitting through that film with me for the second time. 
> 
> title is lyrics from heaven - the blaze

This was a dumb fucking idea. Pushing his way through the crowd of people in an attempt to get to the bathroom in the hopes of shutting the rest of the world out for a bit, Matteo feels like he’s experiencing deja vu. At least he managed to rid himself of Sara for a bit, leaving her with an arm slung over Leonie’s shoulder and a drink in her hand. 

She’s on to him. He feels it in the sad glances she sends his way. She looks at him and she sees  _ something  _ and even if she’s not quite aware of it yet, he knows she’ll figure it out soon enough. He’s too bad of a liar and she’s too smart of a person to be fooled for much longer. 

Moments like these, when he thinks everyone who makes eye contact can just  _ tell _ that there’s something inherently wrong with him, he wants to crawl out of his own skin. A nausea that hadn’t been there before settles in his stomach, his gut, tries to make its way up his throat. 

He has to get out of here. 

He passes Jonas dancing with some girl and he can’t quite tell if his own utter lack of reaction is because of the sickness taking over his body or because something has changed altogether. He just knows he can’t make himself think about it his right now. 

Once in the bathroom, door firmly shut and locked behind him, he breathes, and slowly the nausea subsides. He can barely stand to look at himself in the mirror, instead takes his phone out of his pocket and starts aimlessly going through his social media apps. 

Well. Aimlessly… 

He refreshes David’s instagram feed knowing full well that nothing new will come up. Taps the picture of the bird, the broken one, the one that makes something pull at his chest when he looks at it for too long and imagines David’s hand carefully passing over the paper. Hopes for any indication that he might be on his way, that he might come to make this night just the slightest bit more bearable for Matteo. 

Nothing. 

There’s an impatient knocking on the door and he knows he can’t stay in here forever. Maybe Jonas will be done getting his brain cells sucked out of him by that blonde mouthing at his neck earlier and he’ll be okay to go out for a smoke now. 

When he gets out of the bathroom, however, he’s immediately apprehended by Sara. 

“There you are!” she says, leaning against him heavily. Her breath smells like alcohol. “Let’s dance.” 

There goes that plan. 

She pulls him and he trails behind her, because he feels bad, because he sucks at fighting this. 

And he tries. He really, really tries. Tries to focus on the beer-induced buzziness in his head, the warmth of the bodies around him, the vibrations of the music. Closes his eyes. Attempts to just let himself be dragged along, go with the flow — but Sara puts her hand in his neck and attempts to draw him further into her, and suddenly his skin itches all over. 

Matteo’s eyes open, and his heart skips a beat. 

David. 

He’s  _ here _ . Smiling that soft smile of his as Hans tells him he can throw his coat into the closet in the hallway. Saying something way too quietly for Matteo to hear over the music, but it makes Hans laugh and Matteo feels a loss at the thought that he missed whatever funny thing it was David said. 

(Not like he doesn’t have a hard time stopping himself from smiling around David anyway.)

Matteo doesn’t realise that he’s been staring until David catches his eye and he feels heat flood his face, barely able to smile back quickly before averting his gaze. It takes stupidly little time for him to shoot another glance at David, heart beating in his throat, but by then Leonie has already found her way to him, and now David is smiling at her. 

Something ugly and jealous claws at Matteo’s chest. 

He tries to pretend the way Sara’s hand is slipping underneath his t-shirt is in any way appealing to him. He feels her kiss his neck and he wishes he was strong enough to turn to her and kiss her properly instead of standing there, hands loosely on her waist as her mouth starts pressing kisses to his jawline. 

When he looks up once more, his eyes automatically seek out the only person he wants to see. 

There’s something in David’s eyes he doesn’t quite understand. Something like regret. It hurts to look at, but for some reason he can’t avert his eyes. And then, David gives him the quietest of smiles, the saddest of them, and Matteo- 

Matteo can’t breathe, he can’t think about anything except for how much he does not want to be here, how much he needs to get out, how much he can’t fucking breathe. 

(How much he wants to grab David, take him by the hand, steal him far away from here and shut them both out from the world so they won’t have to think about it anymore and can just  _ be _ .) 

“Sorry, I gotta—” he doesn’t even finish the sentence, lets go of Sara and blindly pushes his way to his room. 

For the second time in half an hour he stands with his back to the door, head pressed against the wood, and wishes the world would swallow him whole. 

After a couple of seconds, he drags himself to the bed, sits down, head in his hands. Every time he closes his eyes he sees flashes of dark eyes and soft hands and birds with clipped wings. He hates how much he  _ wants _ . 

There’s a knock on the door and Matteo’s heart stills. He can’t go back out there. He can’t talk to anyone. If it’s Sara looking for him again, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. The door is pushed open, the music flooding his room. 

It’s not Sara. 

“Is it okay if I come in?” Even when raising his voice enough to be heard over the music, David’s tone is soft. All Matteo can do is nod. 

“Close the door behind you,” he manages, throat raw. 

David does, then waits, seemingly unsure of where to go. When his hand reaches up to his neck, Matteo catches himself follow the movement and quickly looks at the floor before looking up again. 

“Are you okay?”  

Matteo thinks his whole body must radiate  _ no  _ but nods anyway. “Fine. Just — all the people, you know?”

David nods. Then, “Sara was looking for you.”

Matteo swallows hard. “Oh.”

“I told her I saw you go outside for a bit.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t know what that means, except that he’s grateful. “Thank you.”

Silence. 

“I—” Matteo starts, stops. Tries again. “She’s not. It’s not that I don’t— She’s nice. I just. I can’t.” It’s a lame explanation, if it can even pass for one. David just nods slowly. 

They’re both quiet, unsure of where to go from here. As so often these days, Matteo wishes he was a braver person. Outside of this room, someone cranks up the music a couple of notches more, the dulled sound of it passing through the walls. 

“Some good moves you had out there,” David says suddenly. When Matteo looks up at him in confusion there’s a small smirk on his face, and he can’t quite tell if he’s being mocked or not. 

“What?”

“On the dance floor,” David specifies, raising his eyebrows, and  _ oh yeah _ , he’s definitely being teased. “Really impressive.”

Matteo scoffs, but can’t help a small smile spreading across his face. “Like you can do any better.”

For a second, David seems to hesitate, but then he starts — god, he starts imitating Matteo’s awkward moves. And the stupid thing is that he makes them look… smooth, full of intention, not like his limbs have been haphazardly attached to his body and he doesn’t know what to do with them now. 

“You’re ruthless,” Matteo says, grinning. 

David just shrugs, exaggerates a twirl that reminds Matteo of the scene he so helplessly imagined in school last week, and it makes his cheeks heat up in embarrassment and he drags a hand over his face as if that’s going to make the blood in his veins stop rushing. 

Then, a careful hand at his shoulder, just a small push. He spine stiffens as he looks up and finds David, suddenly close. 

(So close.) 

When he meets David’s eye, he expects to see more teasing there. And there is some of that, but besides that, something unsure. Like he’s not sure if this is allowed. 

And Matteo… Matteo is defenseless. 

He gets to his feet, rolling his eyes as if he’s doing it against his will but when David smiles,  he smiles back. How could he not? 

“You’re doing it wrong, you know,” he says, feelings a strange mix of embarrassment and glee course through his body. He should feel silly, sillier than he is, as he stands there in his room, pretending he knows how to move to the beat coming from the living room, with the boy he— with David looking at him. 

“Am I?”

“Yeah, you’re too good,” Matteo says, heart beating in his throat as he says it. “Your moves have to be weird on purpose. So weird that they’re good. Like that cheese toastie. You have to own it.”

It’s ironic that he’s talking about owning it when there’s so much he’s denying. David might be thinking the same thing, because he raises his eyebrows again, in amusement, like he’s saying,  _ oh, is that how it is? _

“Look,” he says, and his throat is dry and his hands are sweaty and his heart is about ready to escape his chest as he reaches out for David’s hand, slow enough that David has time to pull away. 

He doesn’t. 

And, well, Matteo hadn’t thought this far ahead and now his mind is coming up entirely blank.  _ Fuck _ .  _ Fuck fuck fuck fuck.  _

Then, a squeeze. Soft, almost unnoticeable next to the tingling that’s spreading through his fingers. He finds his voice back, at least enough to hoarsely say, “Like this.”

Matteo isn’t sure what’s happening but they’re moving, and it’s still ridiculous and everything they’re doing is entirely out of tune with the music, but David is smiling at him, that careful, thoughtful smile that Matteo would be happy to look at forever. 

“So you’re saying next time at a party, I should just grab the nearest person and pretend I know how to waltz?” David asks as Matteo lets go of one of his hands to let them move apart before coming back together.

_ No _ , Matteo wants to say.  _ Unless the nearest person is me _ . 

Instead, he says, “Definitely.”

“Thanks for the tip, then,” David says. 

Matteo swallows and tries to focus on anything but the feeling of David’s warm hands in his and how close they are now. “Sure.” 

They’re so close and if Matteo could think straight right now he would… he doesn’t know what he would do. But he knows he  _ wants _ .

“Hello my irresponsible little butterfly— Oh,” Hans barges in, and the two of them drop their hands like they’ve been burned. “Am I interrupting something?”

Matteo scrambles for anything to say but his head is filled with too much fog, too few properly formed thoughts. He hadn’t even noticed that the music had stopped playing. 

“Matteo was just giving me back my beanie,” David says quickly, and Matteo thinks he has to start counting all the times David has now saved the day for him. 

“Well,” Hans says pointedly, “everyone is leaving and seeing as it’s your party, you could at least help clean up. Seeing as we know you’re not going to be the one making us hangover pancakes in the morning.” 

He wants to point out to Hans that well, technically, it’s Kiki’s party, but thinks that probably wouldn’t get him out of this. “Yeah, okay. I’m coming.”

Hans leaves the door wide open, revealing the jumble of people trying to find their coat and figuring out who’s going where next with whom. 

Matteo looks back at David. Even though they’re only a meter or so apart it suddenly feels like miles. “I guess I should—”

“Yeah,” David nods. “I’ll just… I’ll see you.” 

And that’s that. It’s only later, when the apartment is empty and Matteo is done emptying half-empty beer cans in the sink, when he’s lying on his bed too tired to even take off his shoes, that he lets himself relive what happened. 

Only glimpses though. Only flashes. 

Just to let him drift off to sleep a little more easily.    
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading <3
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](http://valterzn.tumblr.com)!


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